The Madinah Books Series

Mawlana Qasim, I believe, was a student of Molwi Zahid Hussain when he was a Sunni. Mawlana Qasim is a Murid of Muhadith e Kabir Allama zia ul Mustafa

 

i believe that he is not tafzeeli but a staunch sunni and an ardent follower of Ala-Hazrat alihai rahmah wa riDwan, and perhaps a mureed of Taaj al-Shariyah Hazrat Mowlana Akhtar RiDa Khan Hafizahullahu Ta'ala.

 

"also recommends students to go to Shaam-al-Shareef."

i.e he has recommended some people i know, doesn't necessarily mean he recommends everyone. just wanted to make this clear. lest someone quotes me on this.

 

But when you read to a teacher, an Arabic text, of a science like Usul or any other science you will see the difference between a trained student and self taught.

 

jazakAllah for the insights.

agree with everything, especially about seeking out experts and studying from them. Mufti Akhtar Rida(hafidhahullah) also recommends students to go to Shaam-al-Shareef.

but this is a fadl that Allah(The Wise) grants to whom he wills. i know friends (pursuing/finished darse nizami) who are eager to go to Yemen/Syria/south india and study both shariah and tareeqa under shuyukh but are unable to for various reasons. the friend i have spoken about earlier has a few sanads he acquired whilst he was in syria by attending private study circles of shuyukh but unfortunately he too had to pack up and return owing to ongoing turmoil there.

coming generations will have more trouble.................... May Allah(azzawajal) help us through.

 

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those links are working now.

 

Not necessarily, sayyidi...

I learnt Arabic pretty much through self-study (while making full use of the sarh/nahw mutun, of course), and know many who've done the same.

Although I understand your overall point, and agree... what you say certainly applies to tajwid.

 

JazakAllah. Excellent quote from 'Bahar e Shariat'. The other links are broken.

I agree with AH. Madaris, many of them, are defunct. Its about hunting out masterful teachers. This is especially in mastering tajweed and qira'at, and Arabic language. Then also in all the other disciplines.

 

in the new dawateislami edition, vol.3/p.199-200

 

[Edited by noori: sidi i am really sorry to edit your post, laikin aap nay nihayat sharmindah, or paraishan kar dia, bas neechay jo aap nay kaha hay woh kafi hay]

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the system of education is a mess everywhere. secular education is mostly rote learning and except a few elite universities/schools, the rest churn out degree holders.

our (sub-con) madrasah system is now outdated, the nisab is outdated, teaching methods are antiquated; adding to ineffectiveness, few, if any madrasahs use teaching aids and techniques available in our time. there may be a few elite universities but they are different only because of better teachers and in spite of the system.

you can discount my opinions, but even great scholars and teachers of the previous century lamented the state of madaris and mere sanads.

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we discussed this previously; see here, here and here.

sadru'sh shariah on learning.

alahazrat on sanad and self-study.

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Allah ta'ala knows best.

 

I was referring to learning Arabic. This also refers to tajweed as well. Books are useless in these fields without teachers.

Of course books on other fields written for the layman by the scholars are different.

 

Only an insane person can argue the imprtance and barakah of learing from a qualified teacher. But it also doesn't mean that one should not learn from books, otherwise ulama would be more accountable for the crime of writing shuruh of hadith, tafsir, aqeedah, and fiqh books and giving it in the hands of layman, or at least every book should read this on its title - "you are not allowed to read it on your own, take it to an alim, and ask him to explain you". i am sure no sane person will claim this nonsense either. Learning from books of scholars is in deed learning from ulama. Yes, those uloom that are meant only for ulama should not be learnt by oneself. Can anyone claim that common people (like noori) should not read nuzhat al-qari, mir'aat al-manajeeh, bahaar-e-shariat, tafseer naeemi etc, and what do you say whether i am permitted to read an urdu translation of nuzhat an-nazar with sharh? Or do i have to contact the molana who has written urdu sharh?

This is pretty obvious what a layman can or allowed to read and learn, and what is not.

Ulama are accountable for saving the deen of awam, whether they do it by teaching at dar al-ulooms and train new ulama, or through their bayanaat, or by writing books. When ahl al-bidah are alluring common folks by providing DIY books, then (perhaps) it should be farD kifiyah upon sunni scholars.

In the end i admit that i am just a poor, sinful, and almost a ghabi (dimwit) person, therefore my opinion doesn't hold water if it contradicts with the opinion of ah al-ilm, may Allah subhanu wa ta'ala forgive me and giude me.

Anway, now this thread has deviated its track, therefore it is better to end it here.

 

Nothing can replace the company of Ulama who are teachers.

After that a person can read whatever he likes as he has been trained.

If someone does not have time, then like everything in life, time needs to be made. These books have very little benefit for beginners and for people who have no teachers.

 

no brother i am not taking jibes at anyone. what i have written is by looking at myself. i am the one trying to learn tajweed and arabic online and infact not long ago was taking aqeeda from forums and what not!

(btw dawate islami are starting online dars-e-nizami and i think i'll apply. )



wassalaamu'alaykum-wa-rahmatullahi-wa-barakatuh.

 

This reminds me of..

Na kitaaboun se na college ke hai dar se paida,
Deen hota hai buzurghoun ki nazar se paida.

But I think that you should leave the discussion here before it turns in to something else.

 

well he did not say it like that. he did not mean that learning urdu is indispensable. when i told him i was using some english books to learn arabic he said that if i learnt urdu first then arabic would be much easier if i wished to have 'pukhtagi' in arabic. i think i'll ask him names of books and if they are suitable for self-study.

as for the other part i accept i went off tangentially. i was talking about imam bukhari learning from mutazilite grammarians.

see this post. the question was posed by a friend of mine and the fatwa was given to him personally, not in writing.

yes, i acknowledge that there is no guarantee that "less-informed" muslim students studying secular sciences will not pick-up deviant opinions from their non-muslim teachers. in fact, i think they DO. regularly.

but isn't a 'gumrah' much more dangerous than a kafir? didn't our elders avoid ahl-ul-bidah like the plague? and arabic may be just a language, but its a sacred science no less.

but as this was not under discussion i'll leave it at that. it's best dealt by people more knowledgeable than myself.

i agree that if it's just a book or website with none of the author's biases interjected in between then it should be only be judged based on its academic usefulness.

a final point: this is only a question and not an attack or criticism and it applies more to myself than anyone else:

are we justified in complaining that our elders have not written any books that can be studied by a beginner on his own? was this EVER a sought after goal for the sacred sciences? hasn't the preferred mode of studies always been by sitting at a shaykh's feet? do we not blame the wahhabis for this sort of 'arrogated independence' from the ulema?

yes, in these times we have the internet and ebooks and printing, but all these are conveniences which were perhaps never perceived by the past generations of ulema and perhaps if they were here today they would advise us against this DIY approach. "you want al-ilm go to the doors of a shaykh, don't expect him to write a book that you can read at home". i remember reading somewhere that ulema would use complicated sentences structures purposely, so that an undeserving upstart doesn't get access to this 'ilm and start boasting about how learned he is.

dunno which imam said this: this 'ilm was safe so long it was not written down in the books. now even the unworthy have got access to it.

 

this is not true that you need to learn urdu first, but rather very absurd idea, do karalites first learn urdu to learn arabic?

I am very unfortunate to see such exhaustive works by our ulama. I have not seen all arabic books in urdu written in the subcontinent, but if there are such books they should not be rare, otherwise our students wouldn't buy deobandi prints. Those, that are available are meant to be taught by teachers, you cannot learn from them on your own, for example tasheel al-sarf and tasheel al-nahw. These are the very first books i bought, but could never understand after few pages. then i bought muallim e arabi 3 volumes by a deobandi teacher of madrasah solatiyyah and printed by al-maktabah al-imdadiyyah makkah but was stuck after few chapters, then i bought and downloaded many other books but nothing worked for me. I don't mean that these books are bad, they would be certainly good for classrom learning, but not for self study.

Though i don't need more books at all but i will be really happy to know if someone can name some good arabic grammer books written in urdu or english and they are readily available, at least i can suggest them to others.

you too aren't getting it, the whole discussion is about learning on your own with some good and simple to understand books, otherwise there are arabic teachers in our dar al-ulooms, why then one should go anywhere else. But, still there should be only arabic language courses as well, not everybody has time for dars-e-nizami, where those thirsty seakers should go?

are you sure that he also meant it for a language course? I have a lot of respect for him, and admire his works, but i would really appreciate his fatwa (if it applies to a language course as well) if he also has listed some good sunni books that individuals can use, otherwise hazrat sahab should also work for the remeady rather than only pointing out the disease.

your these two statements are not in agreement with each other. To your later statement it is sufficient to say that there is no guarentee that they will not be effected, you can find ample example of our spoiled childern in the west.

I didn't need to answer every line, but i wanted to clear my point of view, and i hope that i am not making any mistake, otherwise i pray to Allah subhanu wa ta'la to guide me to sirat al-mustaqim.

 

Fatwa

 

salaams.

brother noori, this is news to me. as i have mentioned in a related thread, i have always been advised to first learn URDU if i wish to have mastery over arabic. once an 'aalim told me that our urdu-speaking elders down the ages have done such an exhaustive study of the arabic language and the methodologies for teaching it that the resources made available by them to students of the arabic language are not to be found perhaps in any other language!

as for deobandits, i have been told that the book 'sarf-e-meer', which used to be taught to students of dars-e-nizami as a beginner-level text, has been translated into urdu by a late sunni scholar from Junagadh. In it he has critically analysed the deobandis' urdu translation of the same book and brought to light their ineptitude and poor grasp of the minutiae of arabic. it shows the difference between true and perceived scholarship.

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i think lqtoronto suits us because the medium of instruction is what we are accustomed to apart from the fact that its easy to fit it in our busy schedule.

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even our Master (sallallahualayhiwasallam) had the prisoners of the battle of Badr teach arabic reading and writing to the children of madinah.

but brother QHR makes a fair point that we should not learn or encourage others to learn from known deviants unless the student is solidly grounded in the aqaid of ahlussunnah. i think Mufti Nizamuddeen has ruled it haram to do so. for how can a no so strong person sit in their company, even if only as a student, and not be affected by their beliefs and doubts? the fact that we send children to non-muslim teachers to learn english and other sciences is moot cause they don't come to us with jhubbaas and beards and reciting the kalima and making false claims about the book and the sunnah!